The LDS of the future

[VooDooGasMan]

well Scuba, the $1250 must somehow cover boat charter as a gal post about her happy meal divers filling his boat. A case of the hidden add on to look like your profit is more.

 

[Thalassamania]

...guess I'm just wondering what extras are included @ $ 1250 that weren't included in my 'class in a can' mass production Scubatoys OW cert 10 yrs ago? In this economy charging 3X or 4X the 'canned' rate can't be an easy sell, so I'd like to hear about the assumed extras students get @ $ 1250 ? Honestly, you'd probably be better off doing the OW @ $ 400, and spend the remaining $ 850 funding 20 assorted difficulty Coz drift dives, that real world experience is gonna be way more relevant than anything you'll get out of a book/pool/quarry dives....unless the $ 1250 IS including a bunch of extra real world dives ?

Think what you like, but I'd happily stack my weakest up against the course you describe. What a diver does with me is about 36 hours of classroom, 25 hours of confined water work and 12 to 18 open water dives in a staff to student ration of 1 to 2. The exact program has been developed and passed on from 1952 and directly contributed to by Jim Stewart, Walt Hendricks Sr., Lloyd Austin, Lee Somers, Glen Egstrom, Ronnie Demico, Dave Owen, John McAniff, Paul Heinmiller, John Heinie, Dave Nagel, Lou Feed, Ted Boehler, Ken Skitt, Dick Rutkowski, and Morgan Wells. It is, "an easy sell," so to speak, and students come out with the skill and knowledge level slightly above that of a NAUI Master Diver (which is defined as that of a NAUI Instructor). If you think you can pick that up with 20 dives where you flop off a boat like a dead tuna into urine temperate water and let the current waft you along ... knock yourself out, the only person your kidding is yourself. You see, the "extras" is that you start your diving career at a knowledge and skill level that few recreational divers ever reach.

 

[flots am]

...guess I'm just wondering what extras are included @ $ 1250 that weren't included in my 'class in a can' mass production Scubatoys OW cert 10 yrs ago?

Time and practice come to mind.

flots.

 

[endurodog]

Thalassamania are you teaching rec divers or is this a specialty course that is required for certian jobs? I thought that was the kind of classes you were doing and not rec divers???

 

[Thalassamania]

There is no ban on "recreational" divers learning how to dive well, despite what the agencies tell you. I do not teach specialty courses, I teach a particular type of entry level course that also meets the AAUS standards. The largest proportion of the divers I train are the family of scientific divers who want their love ones to be able to dive as well as they do, for run and recreation.

 

[endurodog]

There is no ban on "recreational" divers learning how to dive well, despite what the agencies tell you. I do not teach specialty courses, I teach a particular type of entry level course that also meets the AAUS standards. The largest proportion of the divers I train are the family of scientific divers who want their love ones to be able to dive as well as they do, for run and recreation.

I thought for sure there was a ban on recreational divers learning how to dive well???? Just kidding I think many recreational divers learn to dive very well but thought your diving students were drawn from a different area than the pure recreational divers, as you pointed out.

 

[boulderjohn]

scuba not sure how Brendon operates but if it is referrals I think those divers are problem divers cause the Pm i just recieved from brendon had more swear words than anything else and was wtitten in a teenagers way of saying it.

I have been curious about Brendon for some time, and I suspect that is why fdog (a NAUI instructor) asked for his name. VDGM responded with this post.

Fdog I think it is Brendon Fowler

I was initially curious because he talked about a friend who is a thriving NAUI instructor in Fort Collins, Colorado, which is not far from where I live. I was surprised because a recent thread in the Rocky Mountain Oyster forum on SB concluded that there was no active NAUI OW instruction in the state. I check the the NAUI web site and could find no NAUI instructor in the part of the state, although there were several listed elsewhere. I searched the best I could and could find no web pages or any other reference to NAUI instruction in Colorado on the Internet. I asked about that, and he said...

I wouldn't go by the NAUI website to count active instructors in your area...That relies on the instructor to update their info. Instructors home address most likely will not show were they are working, at any given time. As far as how he is doing, well I'd say pretty good considering the economy. Averaging 1k a week, not to bad... I have of course no way to verify that, just going off our last conversation about a month ago. (good friend, no reason to lie...) Without going into too much detail about how he does business I can tell you that he does mostly private, college students and retired folk. I think he is very good salesmen first and instructor after your on the hook...

So a guy is pulling in $1,000 a week on scuba instruction with no visible presence--no affiliated shop, no web site, no reference on the NAUI instructor finder, no way at all for me to find him if I wanted to take a class from him. The power of his referral process is really staggering.

So I decided to look into Brendon some more. Since his profile in SB is absolutely empty, I had few clues to go on. I found in another thread that he is a NAUI instructor, like his friend in Colorado. In this thread I found this post:

The world is much larger then wake county... I agree in your area and many others they can be hard to find... Then again your 3hrs from the beach... Emerald isle area has several full-time instructors...

He was responding to a post from a North Carolina resident saying he didn't know of any full time instructors. I checked the Emerald Isle area and found that those full time instructors are using the same invisibility ploy as the Fort Collins NAUI instructor. I checked advertised rates of instruction in the Emerald Isle area, and I found that group instruction ranged from $320-$335. Private instruction could go as high as $475.

Guessing Brendon might live in or near that state, I tried the NAUI member finder again--no one named Brendon in the state. I checked the neighboring states and found no one by that name from Virginia through Florida. (Georgia was tough--the NAUI locator has a flaw that makes it hard to search a state if there is also a city by the same name. I may have missed some.) NAUI has a member verification site that checks every member, but it requires the member's number.

I also tried a variety of other searches to see if I could find anyone named Brendon advertising scuba instruction. No luck.

So my search was without results. It does, however, show the power of having no Internet presence, no advertising, and keeping your name off the the NAUI member list. By using nothing but word of mouth referrals, you can maintain a full time job as an instructor, getting $1,000 per class and earning at least that much per week. That really is impressive.

 

[beaverdivers]

The Future is here. 2012!

 

[Mike]

So my search was without results. It does, however, show the power of having no Internet presence, no advertising, and keeping your name off the the NAUI member list. By using nothing but word of mouth referrals, you can maintain a full time job as an instructor, getting $1,000 per class and earning at least that much per week. That really is impressive.

What a diver does with me is about 36 hours of classroom, 25 hours of confined water work and 12 to 18 open water dives in a staff to student ration of 1 to 2. You see, the "extras" is that you start your diving career at a knowledge and skill level that few recreational divers ever reach.

I wish this level of education would have been available to myself at the time of my certification. I also wish I would have been knowledgeable enough to have understood the benefit versus what was typically offered by the local dive shops.

 

[Thalassamania]

I wish this level of education would have been available to myself at the time of my certification. I also wish I would have been knowledgeable enough to have understood the benefit versus what was typically offered by the local dive shops.

There are very few folks who, without direct experience, can conceive of the difference. I have to admit that I am at a serious advantage, in most cases, my students are all very strongly motivated, are in excellent health, are strong swimmers and are usually rather bright ... that makes it very easy, and greatly enhances the "product".